


And All Those Things I Didn't Say

by starkind



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, DC Cinematic Universe, Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Feels, Breaking Up & Making Up, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, IronBat - Freeform, M/M, Misery, Multi, POV Alternating, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Batman Begins, Pre-Iron Man 3, Pre-The Dark Knight Rises, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6240106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkind/pseuds/starkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>... aka 'The Break-Up Game' </p><p>Because sometimes, the ones you love the most are also the ones you hurt the most.<br/>They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.<br/>But maybe it's time to dig out your compass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tear me Apart and Watch it Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Let's talk about all the "credit where credit is due" situations here first: 
> 
> \- Title belongs to the lyrics of Rachel Platten's 'Fight Song' (2014)  
> \- Chapter titles taken from a song by Krewella 'Come & Get It' (2013)  
> \- Chapters inspired by the incredible list of post breakup AUs, made by and found on 'thehalcyonclubwritingprompts.tumblr.com'  
> \- Special thanks to Batsocks and the amazing (handwritten!) notes on which prompt could work for whom, and for  
> scribbling down all those other tidbits that made it into this little mini-series. Way to go, muse :-)

“... I don't believe you.”  
The words are barely a whisper as they echo through the vast, ancient library of Wayne Manor.  
“Someday you'll understand.”

Bruce does not turn around from where he has been staring into the flickering flames of the fireplace for the past few minutes, arms crossed in front of his chest. Minutes that feel like hours, ever since he has spoken out the words that will seal their future. Cold, cruel words; clipped and pursuing only one goal.  
  
“ _It's over. Us. It doesn't work.”_  
Behind him, he can hear Tony inhale a sharp breath.  
“You fucking asshole.”  
  
The venom that pours out of these few syllables is such a harsh contrast to the warm baritone Bruce has gotten used to over the past few years. Still, he does not move; aware of the cold that starts to crawl further and further across his body, spreading out from all over his back to seep over into his heart. Tony then heaves another, far more shuddering breath. It sounds like a poorly stifled sob.  
  
“You know I could stand watching the whole world burn, if only for the sake of _your_ well-being, and you...”

Hatred and misery make Tony's throat tighten up, and he chokes on his words.  
Unbeknownst to him, Bruce closes his eyes for a very long second. Swallows.  
When he opens them again, there's resolve.

“I'm sorry.”  
Soft shuffling erupts, then Tony's footsteps walk over to the door, away from him.  
“You don't even know what that word means.”

Bruce does not need to turn around to see him leave.  
He also does not need to turn around to see the tears brimming in those big, brown eyes.  
“I hope you burn in hell – you, and that stunted excuse you call a heart.”

The door falls shut not with a bang, but with a soft click.  
  
Once he hears the roar of a sports car outside, Bruce remembers to breathe. His arms uncross to brace him against the mantelpiece as he gulps for air like a drowning man. Only when his body stops betraying him after a few heartbeats he straightens back up, squares his shoulders, and heads down to the cave. He needs to focus; needs to find out more about the psychopath who calls himself the Joker.  
  
Needs to find out how the freak has managed to get his hands on such delicate information as on the USB stick in Bruce's pocket.  
Information on no one else but the man Bruce has just banned from his life. For solely one reason.  
To keep him safe from harm.

 


	2. Train my Mind so I forget

It has been months.  
Even if he does not want to count, he knows it has been eight months, twenty days, and nine hours to be exact.  
Fuck ingenuity. It does not serve him well when it comes to matters of the heart.  
  
After Bruce, Tony has deleted all contact information from his phone, his servers, his mainframe. Nice try, sadly to no avail. Of course he _remembers._ As if it were that easy to just forget a stupid string of digits with an IQ of over 200 - no matter how hard he tries to diminish those many brain cells with hard liquor. No, of course he still has that one number memorized, even though they have not spoken since their split.  
  
And no amount of bourbon will change that; be that six shots, or eight.  
Maybe nine.  
Okay, fine, _ten._  
  
After a business trip in February takes him to Gotham City of all places (“Nah, Pep, course I go alone. I'm a grown-up man.”), Tony finds himself getting plastered beyond belief in a shitty and moreover quite dingy bar somewhere downtown, close to that obscenity that is Wayne Tower. Really though; is there no place in this hellhole that does not have this concrete phallus on display?

Bold (drunk) enough to share his epiphany with the very owner of said building, Tony fumbles out his phone, dials, waits through the dialing tone, and interrupts the suspicious voice on the other end with a verbal cacophony that is so slurred and absurd that he does not even notice when the busy tone sets in. Funnily enough, there is a roar of a V12 engine outside just a little over ten minutes later.   
  
Soon after, a glum billionaire walks into the bar, wearing a black woolen coat, matching dark leather gloves, a pair of rimless, minimalist glasses, and a very prominent scowl. Tony finds himself getting pulled from the bar stool and dragged out into the cold, gray drizzle of Gotham City, until he sits safe and secure in that damn familiar Lamborghini that smells of leather, invigorating fragrance, and, _fuck_ , memories.  
  
The Murciélago ignites, and its powerful, dark hues are all that resonate within the cabin, because they simply do not talk; not a single word. This, however, is mostly Tony's fault, because his nefarious brain finally decides that he should sleep that whole bottle of bourbon off - before he might go and puke it all over that magnificent natural tan leather interior of the Italian supercar.  
  
That surely would _not_ be a good way of expressing gratitude to your ex for saving your drunken ass from being robbed in a dark alley, or worse.

Once he is halfway conscious, Tony finds himself aboard his private jet, high up the clouds, heading for Malibu. Alone. Nothing in his pockets hints at Bruce leaving him a note or a text on his phone. The only thing that accompanies Tony back to California is the faint smell of Chanel's Egoiste Platinum around his body, almost like some sort of ghostly embrace.

How _fitting._  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to black_queen (hotch_fan) for the mental image of Bruce Wayne wearing rimless glasses of the expensive kind. I hope it's alright for me to borrow that look for this version of Bruce here for a second <3


	3. Pull my Heart out of my Chest

You still keep tabs on him.  
  
Call it force of habit, call it concern – call it whatever, just do not call it love (“Of course not, Master Wayne.”) You do not have the luxury of friends; why should you have the splendor of love? Even though the Joker is now safely behind bars, Gotham is not safe. Those near you are not safe. Especially Tony would _never_ be safe enough to your liking, Iron Man armor or not.

So you decide to leave things be the way they are: A fucked up heap of emotions - twisted shards of reminiscence, of happier times.  
  
They take you way back and out of Gotham, because, somehow, you were always feeling the happiest in Malibu. Which says something – not about Malibu, but about you. Go figure. What also says something about you is that you still go and seek out that one hole-in-the-wall coffee shop literally no one in this world besides you knows about.  
  
Except... _him._  
  
Him, and that tracker that still sits hidden underneath the Audi R8 exhaust system ever since.  
He probably knows about the tracker; his AI must have told him at some point, but apparently, it still works.  
You know it does, because your acquisition meeting in LA is over, you have some time to spare before your flight crew has the Learjet ready, and...

… you needed to see him.

You sentimental, sentimental fool.

What you did not need to see is the tall, athletic blonde who sits in ~~your~~ the spot across from Tony, his back towards you. The guy must just have said something funny because Tony's face breaks out in such innocent, blissful felicity, almost like a beacon of light. And something inside of you stings so hard that you actually reach up, past your open Armani jacket, and rub the left side of your chest.

Before you make an even bigger fool out of yourself, you put the rented silver Mercedes S500 in reverse. Dust whirls up left and right as you gun it out of the parking lot, down the PCH, and over to where your jet awaits you at the private airfield. While you are doing 70 instead of 55, jaw set tight and fingers leaving marks on the leather-clad wheel, you keep chiding yourself over and over.  
  
You wanted this.  
_Sentimental, sentimental fool._  
This is for the best.  
  



	4. Sink your Teeth into my Bones

Why Alfred still feels the need to keep in touch with Pepper Potts remains out of Bruce's realms.  
  
He does not ask for Pennyworth to stop because that would be of no use, and Bruce knows better than to challenge the man who raised him up. Alfred can be a force to be reckoned with, and there are things on earth not even the Batman wants to unleash. Besides, he still works hard on making himself even more emotionally numb. But succeeds only halfway. _(Damn you, Alfred.)_

In no time, Bruce is up to date on the identity of Tony's mysterious blonde coffee date. Steve Rogers is the man succeeding in making Tony Stark smile again - a living legend, freed from the ice of the past to fight for the future freedom of his country. And despite pushing 90 (but looking 30; best anti-age campaign _ever_ ), Captain America also goes and becomes friends with no one else but Clark Kent's alter ego. Oh, the _irony._  
  
Any more balled up righteousness dressed in blue and red and Bruce might go throw up in his mouth.  
But maybe Bruce Wayne is just a cynical, lonely bastard.  
That surely must be it.

Having mutual acquaintances also means being unable to avoid staying within a certain periphery of each other. Clark (being a reporter and the good friend he is) has taken care of upping Bruce's social media exposure because it does not hurt getting with the times - and keeping up appearances is vital these days. What _does_ hurt though is how Bruce cannot help but to notice day-to-day changes in his ex-lover's behavior.  
  
His Instagram goes from a lot of intimate togetherness pictures with #CaptainHandsome or #mymyMurica _(really_ now, Tony?!) to sparse posting in less than a year. The Twitter is basically dead or used by some geek from Stark Industries' PR department. Bruce should have deleted his account ages ago. Why is he still following Tony anyhow? He makes a point in planning to unfollow 'The Starkster', fingers ghosting over the button.

Do it, come on.  
... tomorrow then.  
For real.  
  
For how scarce Captain Rogers seems to make himself all of a sudden, the reappearance of 'The Hat' starts to give Bruce something new to dwell upon. Said accessory comes with a history not known to many (but then again, Bruce has never been 'many'). It is an unflattering black beanie that only covers his raven locks whenever Tony has trouble. Its history started right after his return from Afghanistan.  
  
After a long period of absence, the ill-fitting beanie then surprisingly became a frequent staple in Stark's wardrobe (and on his head) once more. Not many people knew this was connected to the fact that Tony's frequent trips to Gotham City had just found a sudden end. Oh, Bruce has seen all those paparazzi pictures; his butler made a point in compiling and putting them out for him to see. _(Thank you, Alfred.)_  
  
Always one for self-flagellation, Bruce has forced himself to look at the picture(s) of misery he had created.  
And that is why it is literally killing him to see Tony sporting that look now.  
_Again._

 


	5. Dig me Out then Fill the Hole

Sometimes Tony thinks that the universe hates his guts.  
  
Okay, on the one hand, it has gifted him with an unusual amount of intelligence, handsomeness, and wealth, but on the other hand... Don't tell anybody, but he could very well do without most of _those_ in his life, thank you very much. How about some kind of personal happiness for once instead, hmm? Suffice to say, he did not luck out on that front. No, instead he got hit right in the kisser yet again.  
  
Well, what can you say (or put up) against Captain America's bestie from Brooklyn, who was supposed to be dead, but -surprise, surprise- is alive? Mind you, he may be a lethal brainwashed killing machine by now, but, oh well, there's always a catch, right? Aw, shucks - no hard feelings there; Steve is not to blame. Tony just knows that he is not worthy of being loved. And really, that is perfectly fine.  
  
He should have realized this sooner, but better late than never, right?

It is at that point in his life that Tony decides to shelve his non-existent love life once and for all, and focuses on the things the world is expecting him to deal with: Being Iron Man, protecting mankind. He can do that; has done so (minus a few glitches here and there) quite successfully in the past. First of all, however, he goes and declutters his mansion. Out with the old, in with the new.  
  
It is a quirk of fate that he actually goes and gets his hands dirty himself - because paying people to go through your personal belongings can easily end in juicy gossip stuff of the finest kind. There are some things even _he_ does not need to read all over the papers and the net. And so, after two days of crawling through closets far too big to simply call them closets, Tony eventually reaches the very back of his dressing room.  
  
A small, nondescript box catches his attention, because it does not hold the old and ugly cufflinks he meant to donate to Pepper's upcoming whatsitsname charity event, but a bunch of wrapped up letters instead. Curious, Tony folds his legs up on the plush carpet and tugs at the rubber band. It is brittle and crumbles at first touch, and Tony stares at the familiar, neat handwriting on the first envelope.  
  
It spells out his name.  
Thumbing through the little pile, there are at least ten of them - dated from way back in 2006 - all the way up to the present.  
Unable to resist his curiosity any longer, Tony slides a pinkie in between the first one and rips it open.

His personal assistant finds him much later, still rooted to the same spot; hunched over on the floor. There is a stack of envelopes torn open on his left, and pages of paper on the right. When Pepper Potts hunkers down, she cannot help but notice the dried up tears on her boss' cheeks. When Tony lifts his head, he looks as if he had been miles away. Pepper catches a glimpse of the signature underneath the letter in his hand.  
  
"He never told me how he felt."  
His voice is distant and full of doubt.  
She looks at the man she has come to love in so many ways, and it breaks her heart to see him so lost and confused.  
  
“Go. Go and fix this. If anyone can, it's you.”

And that is how Tony Stark finds himself on the doorstep of Wayne Manor only two hours later (thanks to Mark IX), looking rather comical with the small, delicate box in his mighty, gauntleted hands. Tony flips his faceplate up when the butler opens, looks him up and down, and asks him inside. Once Alfred has backed off to get his protege, Tony fights his anxiety by counting the stairs of the grand staircase looming up to his right.  
  
He gets to 23 before a faint and rhythmic thud on hardwood floor interrupts him.  
Seeing Bruce lean on a cane is more than odd, but Tony manages to keep a straight face.  
For a couple of seconds, they just stare at each other like strangers, then Tony clears his throat.

“Spring cleaning time. Look what I found.”  
He holds up the box for emphasis, to which the suit responds with soft, mechanical whirring.  
“I'm a nosy motherfucker, so I read them all.”  
  
Bruce does not say a word from behind pinched lips and continues to stare at the small item. He also does not make a move to take it, so Tony shakes the box. “The last one's dated the day you moved out. And so - even if I'm not sure why - here I am, wondering why the fuck we’re not together anymore.” Wayne shifts his weight from right to left, and it is then a brief bout of pain flashes over his face.

“Because I needed to protect you.”  
When Tony hurls the box away, it slithers across the polished floors, losing some of its contents.  
“By ripping out my heart? D'you wanna know what? Your _protection_ stinks, Wayne, big time!”  
  
“The Joker was about to..."  
It is then that Tony starts to go from uncertain to aghast real quick.  
“You left me because of a _fucking_ _clown?”_

It is this sentence that finds frequent repetition, gaining in volume also, until Bruce holds up a stern hand, palm outwards. 

"Are you going to yell at me like that for long?"  
_"WHAT IF I AM?!?"_  
"Then I'll also get my suit."

Dauntless, despite being handicapped and vertically challenged in comparison (for once), Bruce puts his free arm akimbo. Tony huffs, twice, which makes for a quite strange picture inside his threatening armor, and purses his lips. "Like hell you will. No, here's how it goes: I'm going to Rhett Butler your sorry ass upstairs now, Scarlett O'Hara, and you're gonna fess up."  
  
With these words, Tony moves in and sweeps him off his feet in one swift (but oh-so-careful) motion.  
  
  
**THE END**

 


End file.
